Pongo #44

Channel 22

Thank you. I'd like to tell you all a storyneither original or carbon copied from another source. This one is called "Silence the Frog.

The father of the family wears a frown where his temple skin has been squidged beneath worries. Whether the children are spoiled tearaways or deprived waifs is just one of his collection. Most often it is found that those who worry in the first place are the ones who need to be the least concerned. At least they consider their childrens' welfare, after all. Not so this father.

This particular father worried for progress. He was concerned that everything was a distraction to the intellectual blossoming of his offspring. Over-batteried toys deadened their creativity, storybooks killed off their rationality, other children hamstrung their concentration. He had been told about the exceptional speed children pick up skills such as languages in a way adults fail to do, and he worried about them growing old and statically stupid because of timewasting diversions. Because of this he ensured that they studied for an hour after school every day, and would not hear a word of protest. He limited their time with playmates too, and for a short while this isolation and the sight of his children scribbling Masc: Der; Fem: Die; Neut: Das; Plu: Die in endless tables on lined paper seemed to uncurl his brow a little.

But the written work was merely incidental to his major plan. More than anything, he wished for his children to be musical prodigies: concert pianists, star cellists, violin maestros, French horn virtuosos. Every night, he would assign an hour's rigorous practice: fifteen minutes on each of the four instruments, timed on his watch, with the hope that one of them would snag on the child's no-doubt latent talent, to indicate where their time would be best spent.

One day, however, when he went in to test the children on their arpeggios, he noticed the silence coming from their room, before nearly tripping over a fair-sized toy car. Odd, thought the father. I never bought this. Suddenly he heard a scuffling from the cupboard next to their desks. As he approached the cupboard, the children leapt from their pens to block his way.

"No Dad, please. They were bright children without the extra schooling, and so they did not lie that there was nothing inside the cupboard, but instead remonstrated with him not to poke inside.

He placed them aside and peered in. A small pale boy in leafy clothes sat there, curled up, his eyes shut. In his hand he clutched the remote control to the car. The father tweaked the Forward lever. The car roooeered into life, careering into a dresser. The boy opened his huge dark eyes and grinned weakly, just as his collar was grabbed and to the sounds of the childrens' protests, his little body bundled outside. Bus money was pressed into the spare palm, the other hand still gripping the plastic box. His car was thrown out into the lane alongside him, the battery cover flying into a nearby bush. Nobody asked where he came from. The only words were instructions to do double the exercise pages tonight.

The door, when it slammed, shook ripples through the garden pond. Nobody saw the young boy outside listen for a second as if hearing some primal holler, before vaulting the back gate and diving into the pond. A pond that was the depth of an LP record and it swallowed him up.

Insa

I know this one backwards, as any child would and yet I'm sitting here watching it retold in painful slow motion, fairly badly in fact, by someone famous for reenacting old stories in painful slow motion with bigger budgets each time. We're all sat here, millions of Cadderines at this moment. I can't tell whether I'm wasting my time or using resources to clear the nettles from my sightline.

Look: test me. Blah blah, pushy father. Boy disappears into water and each night reappears in the childrens' cupboard. Father gets more and more irate with each discovery, tightens the reins on his two protégées to the extent of banning playmates altogether, then one night waits to see where the strange child goes. He watches the small boy leap the gate with surprising ease and disappear into the shallow pond. All that is left is a small frog, croaking on a lily pad. He watches and waits each night to confirm his suspicions about the boy and the frog, then hits upon the idea of filming the child's disappearance into the pond. This he does and upon slow playback, is able to discern the transformation from human to amphibian. Aha, he thinks, so now I can stop this thing once and for all from distracting my children and the development of their musical genius.

Only of course it isn't that simple. He lurks in wait for the magic boy, then nets him in froggy form seconds after he has changed, picking up the creature in his hand. Suddenly the father changes, goes outwardly insane and grabs the frog around the neck, so that its neck bubble swells and its huge eyes hugen more in panic. As he begins to choke the creature to death, the father hears the sound of a baby crying and screaming.

He looks about, loosening his grip for a second, but the mist is upon him and he begins to throttle the tiny frog again, determined that nothing will ruin the bright futures of his children. The crying begins afresh and this time he happens to glance at his prisoner's face, only to realise that the crying is coming from the frog itself. Just like a newborn child it cries, and what does he do? Well he thinks it's a trick of course. Tightens his grip, and soon the frog goes limp and silent in his hand, its neck broken like a cocktail stick.

So father goes upstairs, having dumped the frog by the pond. Calls his children. They don't answer. Suddenly afraid, rushes to their room, flings open the door to find them quietly writing away. I called you, he says. Why didn't you answer. They don't look up. He touches the shoulder of his daughter. She looks up at him, confused. Touches his son's arm. Same blank look. Both are completely deaf. As he watches, they go on writing. Der Die Das Die Den Die Das Die Des Der Des Der Dem Der Dem Den.

It was probably originally a temperance narrative. Something disappointing like that. My brain feels like it's softening, but I watch on. I watch on and take a drink, and the Cadderines and Marenettes and Godknowswhos drink with me. Cheers.